fake horoscopes: march 21st-march 27th
dispatches from planet earth, and a series of readings from the stars above
greetings from a wednesday evening on planet earth. tonight our top story: why does everybody hate you? just kidding. we have way more important things to think about than the fact that nobody likes you.
it’s wednesday, like i already said, and instead of being a productive member of the human evolutionary project i instead made myself cum seven times and then fell into a perfectly catatonic cat nap. but that’s neither here nor there. buddy dwyer kind of already took the cake in terms of news delivery disclosures.
our top stories tonight, from the little blue dot blinking neon light and traffic smog into an otherwise indifferent and exasperated universe: humans are running out of oil. when asked about phasing incrementally into modes of living and production that require less oil, world leaders delivered yet another in a long series of blithely uninterested monologues about working with industry instead of against it, but repeatedly looked over their shoulder throughout the statement. when asked what they were looking for, they told reporters they were all on high alert for a new megafauna to come into the picture and step up to the proverbial plate (or gas tank). so far they admit they’ve found no sign of a new species willing to come in and get rocked by a meteor in order to provide the mega empires of tomorrow with oil, but stated that they remain hopeful. the press conference was ended after someone shouted that they saw something large and lumbering in the distance, but it turned out to just be a military tank going to occupy a local target.
israel is still committing a genocide in palestine and the old guy the u.s. americans elected is still funding it. the old guy has to face the last old guy later this year in a bloody gladiator brawl to decide who will remain the savage nation’s god-king. while of course we of a more evolved nature shudder at the thought of needlessly spilling other life form’s blood, the u.s. americans are very particular and insistent on the necessity of bloodshed as a consecration of their right to continue spilling blood. kind of a ‘chicken or the egg’ situation over here to be frank. but don’t worry. i’m sure this next round of killing will be the one that ends the cycle of violence.
in more positive news, scientists have discovered a new species of fish in a time when many species are facing certain human-caused climate change death in what some marketers are calling “the mass extinction event of the millennium.” it’s a beautiful and heartening reminder that life here, on earth at least, goes on. the fish has been named oncorhynchus delphiiani, or the delphi trout for short. when asked about the naming process, scientists explained that in addition to being found in the gulf coast and carribean seas, the delphi trout has a unique evolutionary skill that sets it apart from its peers: namely, the ability to look directly into your eyes and predict with exact certainty the date and manner of your death. when asked for a follow up, the scientists who had made the discovery of the not-yet-identified species could not respond, because the fish had killed them and then taken their wives. upon locating the fish at home on the couch, the late scientists’ colleagues had asked the fish to explain itself, to which the fish had simply shrugged, one fin around each of its two new girlfriends. “i don’t know, man,” the fish is reported to have said. “could you explain everything you’ve ever done under scrutiny to an audience already convinced of your guilt?” we here in the interplanetary press, at our newsroom at least, admit we could not.
in a touching display of sincere regret for its actions, the fish has asked to be renamed the barry fish after the barry brothers, the two scientists who roused it from its ancient slumber and unknowingly awoke and unleashed a great beast of unfathomable violence and power onto the world. as for us here at the manic pixie dream girl’s wednesday report, we think whatever he does next, the barry fish has already proven he has a barry big heart.
aries (march 21st-april 19th): the barista you don’t like at the coffee shop you don’t actually enjoy going to but continue going to every day out of convenience will overcharge you for a drink this week. instead of letting go of and unleashing that famous aries temper, let the fact that you are going to die one day inspire you to take an extra five minutes out of your day in order drink coffee you actually like. lock yourself in the bathroom stall and count to ten. the border between your quick bursts of rage and a never-ending, subatomic well of grief is thinner than you think.
for aries — “nature morte” by robert creeley
taurus (april 20th-may 20th): this week management at your job will suggest you do something differently than the way you’ve already decided you will be doing this thing until the day you drop dead. think of yourself like a bee in a hive: the honey needs to get made, regardless of how you feel about it. consider the fact that the flight of the bumblebee is scientifically impossible, and yet it stings its rage and sweetness into the lapis lazuli of the sky anyways. consider the fact that some things are not worth fighting over, even if you really, really, really know you’re right and everybody else is wrong. release your tension somewhere that is built to handle it. as a reminder, a bitchy work email or a fragilely egoed child are not the place.
for taurus — “poem” by charles simic
gemini (may 21st-june 20th): the rest of the century is looking bad for you. but luckily, the beginning of the century did too, so it won’t be any different than usual. devote yourself to something that facilitates healthy air flow for your inner world. go scrapbooking around the city the way tourists go sightseeing. stand barefoot in a river somewhere. stop looking at your screen. rent a motorcycle, crash it into a tree, stumble into the main street of a dusty western town like the less stable cousin of the protagonist in an old spaghetti western. whatever. just try to actually be alive. the whole world breathes when you sit still enough to pay proper attention. touch someone you love the way you wish someone who loved you would touch you, and then switch places.
for gemini — “a day is vast” by jane hirschfield
cancer (june 21st-july 22nd): right now everyone is looking at you wondering what you’re going to do next. just kidding, nobody cares. but how awfully, terribly beautiful to be so unloved that you can do anything you want to do without anyone so much as raising an eyebrow. there is no audience. there is no finish line. there is, as ever, nothing to prove. weave a ribbon between two trees. come back in a hundred years and see if they’re grown any closer together.
for cancer — “my hobbies” by chessy normile
leo (july 23rd-august 22nd): you will find the love of your life in a club in berlin on august 27, 2034. until then just try not to piss off everybody else around you. develop a hobby that isn’t revolved around your praise kink. do something you’re bad at because you’re bad at it and not because it feeds into your shame kink. take a watercolor class with an old man who always peers over the top of his glasses to look at you when you’re talking. fail at it spectacularly. aim to be the worst painter the world has ever seen.
for leo — this snippet from “lecture on loneliness” by claire schwartz
virgo (august 23rd-september 22nd): a moth will come to you inside a dream that feels haunted by someone who doesn’t show their face but nevertheless becomes the entire house the dream is bound in. you have the choice to kill the moth and eat its skin or to wear it alive and alight in your hair. call somebody who you wish would come back into your life. start by being vulnerable. start by attempting to be honest. start by saying hello.
for virgo — “laura, i want you pulling your hair back” by natalie dunn
libra (september 23rd-ocobter 22nd): your true, genuine emotions are a fossil in a box on a drawer in a closet in the spare room of the house you paid too much for and which looks like every other house on your block. everything else you’ve been pretending to be and feel is an attempt to pretend the fossil and its once gooey life aren’t real. imagine your six-year-old self coming to visit you and having to tell her that the once wild living thing she loved so much is so dead it’s hardened into a blackened bulky rock, and that not only have you killed it, but you’ve locked it in a shoebox in a room that smells like mothballs and old lady perfume. try to build a life that, if she was able to come and visit you across space & time, she wouldn’t be so horrified by.
for libra — “in a field at sunset” by carl phillips
scorpio (october 23rd-november 21st): there’s a beetle and a scabbard and a noose, all doing the jig inside your brain. right now your job is to keep the beetle from impaling itself on the scabbard, and to toss the noose out completely. leave fresh water for all the little creatures in your brain. open the windows up there. it’s springtime, goddamnit. the least you could do is resolve not to kill yourself while the sun sets after seven pm.
for scorpio — “telemachus’ detachment” by louise gluck
sagittarius (november 22nd-december 21st): you think you’re stevie knicks but really you’re gob from arrested development. stop carrying around a dead bird in a little cardboard bag. stop pontificating about the mysteries of the universe and sacred geometry to people who actually understand real science. humility isn’t about making yourself smaller; it’s about being the size you actually are. text someone you owe an apology to. stand on the porch or the patio in an oversized button down and comfy shorts, and eat an entire mango or apple without looking once at your phone. when you start to feel shivers down your spine, you’ll be ready to carry on.
for sag — this snippet from “guilty of dust” by frank bidart
capricorn (december 22nd-january 20th): most people have zero chance of actually getting to become the person they most desperately wish to be. instead of gleefully celebrating their failures, look at your own. it’s a basic social courtesy to try to listen about as much as you talk. it’s also basic social decency not to shoot yourself in the foot every time you leave your house and try to make conversation with people. expect for a piece of purple fruit to turn up unexpectedly in your fridge. you will have to decide this week between continuing down the path you’ve already accidentally sunk half your adult life into, or owning up to the fact that the person you’re spending your life with is not someone you actually like. throw the fruit at their head, or throw it at your own. either way it’s time to make some moves.
for capricorn — “grass, 1967” by victoria chang
aquarius (january 21st-february 18th): you like to imagine yourself as a paper doll that someone else is maneuvering through the world as an attempt to hide from the cavernous fact of your loneliness. put yourself to bed early this week, aquarius. listen to the same song on repeat until you feel like you could step note by note all the way to heaven, or your home planet. look for a treehouse in the clouds. write down your thoughts in a notebook just for you instead of putting them onto twitter or whatever garish group chat you’ve made an outsized part of your personality. tip 30% wherever you go this week. light the doll on fire. you’re ready to be a real boy.
for aquarius — “voyager” by mary ruefle
pisces (february 19th-march 20th): like a fish evading a bigger, scarier fish, you evade responsibility at every watery turn. the first step in not being an absolutely pathetic excuse for a human being is to accept the fact that you are in fact a pathetic excuse for a human being. until you stop swimming away from the nasty unpleasant facts of life, you will never find what you are looking for. what are you looking for, anyway? for people to like you? for someone to tell you that you’re cool enough to justify all the space and resources you suck up from the rest of the ocean? it’s not anybody else’s job to humor you, pisces. look the shark straight it in the eye. step into the whale’s great watery mouth. you will find your reason to like yourself once you accept there’s nowhere else to look to but death.
for pisces — “[you fit into me]” by margaret atwood
may all your wednesdays be comprised of deliciously ill-advised but much needed naps. and may the great gods of old, wherever they are, wherever they roam, look into your heart and see goodness enough to let you live. and may you subscribe to my newsletter and give me $6.66 a month in order to help me fulfill my nefarious plans of making rent and not being a waitress until i’m eighty.
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